Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Teaching and Learning About the Holocaust, Edited by Anthony Pellegrino and Jeffery Parker. 2022. Palgrave MacMillan, Switzerland

Holocaust Exclusivism: One Way or Another, the Holocaust Remains Privileged in the American Classroom

This book begins with the all-too-familiar message about antisemitism on the increase, and this requiring (what else?) still more Holocaust education. It is the same strategy that Jews have used for decades. We also hear, once again, that most students know very little about the Holocaust, and this, too, is made into an excuse to drive even more Holocaust education. Ironic to this, and discussed below, students know almost nothing about non-Jewish genocides!

HOLOCAUST EXCLUSIVISM: DISENGENUOUS CLAIMS OF FAIRNESS TO ALL GENOCIDES

There are efforts to compel all 50 U. S. states to require teaching the Holocaust. Lindsey Stillman comments, “This report studied the 21 states that have passed legislation mandating Holocaust education in some capacity. Of these, 16 also included teaching other genocides such as the Armenian Genocide.” (p. 30).

Let us take a closer look at this. Five states are empowered to teach just the Holocaust without as much as a pretense of fairness to other genocides. Sixteen other states profess to include other genocides. So what? Nothing guarantees that ANY non-Jewish genocide gets more than passing mention, let alone that every single genocide gets equal classroom time to the Jews’ Holocaust! Still less is there any kind of mandatory accountability that students have learned as much about every one of the non-Jewish genocides as they have learned about the Holocaust.

HOLOCAUST EXCLUSIVISM: THE REALITIES OF CLASSROOM SCHEDULING ALONE VIRTUALLY GUARANTEE A JEWISH MONOPOLY

Pellegrino and Parker write, “Teaching about and trying to facilitate learning from the Holocaust has never been an easy venture. Teachers regularly have to contend with not having enough time, the demands of standardized testing, administrators and parents questioning the necessity of Holocaust education, and attending to the everyday content and skills of their discipline.” (p. 4. Emphasis added.)

If there is barely enough time to teach about the Holocaust, how much less likely that any meaningful sort of classroom time will be devoted to every one of the non-Jewish genocides! It is a zero-sum game indeed.

HOLOCAUST EXCLUSIVISM: JEWISH INFLUENCE BUYS A CLASSROOM HOLOCAUST NEAR-MONOPOLY

Jennifer Stillman identifies the activism that caused 21 states (so far) to require teaching the Holocaust. She writes, “Official funding is rare–only three states (Florida, New Jersey, and Colorado) have allocated modest funds. Persons interviewed for this report, however, stressed that private funding and in-kind contributions from museums, universities, and communities as well as countless hours of volunteer work somewhat disguise this shortcoming.” (p. 32).

She continues, “In short, we have Holocaust education bills today because we need them to address contemporary challenges, especially antisemitism, and because their proponents became experienced operators in building coalitions, fundraising, political lobbying, and limiting themselves to attainable goals.” (p. 35).

Stillman then gets more specific, “This recent proliferation and pace of passage of such bills can also be attributed to support from institutions such as museums, universities and community groups, increased funding, hiring lobbyists, and moderation of goals. Several respondents mentioned the support of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum [USHMM] nationally, local universities and museums such as the Oregon Jewish Museum, and Jewish and other communities as vital for the passage of such bills. Without dedicated and overwhelmingly unpaid individuals in such organizations, these bills would not be on the books today.” (p. 35. Emphasis added).

Holocaust dominance in schools is no accident. We can see how one intrusion of the Holocaust into American society (the USHMM in Washington, D. C) serves as a stronghold for further Holocaust-related intrusions into American society (more and more states required to teach the Holocaust).

From the above statements, it is obvious that Jewish influence plays a major role in getting the Holocaust into schools. It’s the elephant in the room yet again.

By no stretch of the imagination do we have a level playing field when it comes to the advocacy of inclusion of various genocides in the classroom. Non-Jewish groups do not have anywhere near the resources enjoyed by the Jews. It’s a no-brainer.

HOLOCAUST EXCLUSIVISM: PREDICTABLY, STUDENTS KNOW ALMOST NOTHING ABOUT NON-JEWISH GENOCIDES

Using open-ended questions, Jennifer Rich interviewed 75 university undergraduate students that had been products of the American public school system. (p. 64).  She makes these revealing comments, “Other students responded to this question by listing genocides that they knew of. Fifty students listed only the Holocaust or said that they did not know of any genocides at all. Eleven students knew of more than one genocide, and common responses included the Holocaust, Armenia, Cambodia, and Rwanda. The remaining students answered incorrectly…” (p. 67).

This is not limited to “random” university undergraduate students. A group of teachers in training has also exhibited a lack of even nominal awareness of non-Jewish genocides. See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2023/11/08/genocide-ignorance-holocaust-education-inequities-invisible-polish-suffering-teacher-candidates-know-almost-nothing-about-non-jewish-genocides-rich/

Clearly, Holocaust dominance in American classrooms has pushed the non-Jewish genocides almost completely out of the public consciousness. It is by design.

HOLOCAUST EXCLUSIVISM: ONLY THE JEWS’ HOLOCAUST ENJOYS THE RACIST PRIVILEGE OF BEING SINGLED OUT FROM ALL OTHER GENOCIDES

Stillman writes, “By including mandates to teach the Holocaust and other genocides, bills reviewed for this study largely avoided competition between different groups and opened doors for other supporters of the bill to join. This was quite intentional. A person involved in Holocaust education in Oregon that did not want to be identified for this study wrote that they were ‘advocating to call it a genocide mandate not Holocaust and genocide. The Holocaust is an example of a genocide and should not be pulled out as separate. (…) our bill was that it was genocide inclusive and requires teachers to educate on genocides beyond the Holocaust. The name is misleading–but this was a battle I wasn’t going to win.’” (p. 39. Emphasis in original.)